


Dissolution

by Bullfinch



Series: Sublimation [3]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, Monster Reaper, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-01
Updated: 2016-08-01
Packaged: 2018-07-28 13:48:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7642987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bullfinch/pseuds/Bullfinch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gabriel Reyes escaped the Overwatch base explosion as a cloud of artificially intelligent nanomachines. He can’t be surprised that his body has been growing less and less stable ever since.</p><p>It seems like Jack should care about that. But years later, when they finally come face-to-face again, it doesn’t seem to bother him at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dissolution

**Author's Note:**

> I want to thank [cranitys-art](http://cranitys-art.tumblr.com/) for letting me use their [monster Reaper design](http://cranitys-art.tumblr.com/post/146388115307/im-a-sucker-for-anything-monstery) as inspiration for this. The fic wouldn't exist without it.

The pulse rifle.

Gabriel knows the sound of it well by now, although he doesn’t know how Jack keeps on tracking them down. (Must be Jack, the tactics, the body language bright as neon in Gabriel’s mind. Not to mention the apparent vendetta.) Vivid bursts of light splash onto the brick wall just beyond him, searing his shoulder (he hardly feels it—nerves are complicated, and he spares little effort anymore in reconstructing them the right way, especially for sensing pain). He spins around.

A figure in white and blue at the end of the alley, the red line of a tactical visor glowing in the evening gloom. Still firing, but he aims too high, as Gabriel has already dropped low to the ground and practically slithers along it; his supporting structures, the tendons and bones, scavenge themselves inside him, shift and rearrange to accommodate the movement. Jack is slow to adapt. Gabriel bares his teeth behind the mask. _Still leaning on the good old days?_ he thinks to himself. _You haven’t seen me, Jack. Things have changed._

The distance closes fast. Jack falls back as steady as he ever was, getting a better bead now, and Gabriel must squeeze himself through a window for cover (smashes it and then flows straight through). Then his shotguns are in hand and he sticks one through the broken glass and starts shooting.

No return fire. Gabriel cocks his head, hears the faint sound of bootsteps retreating. With a snarl he’s out the window and in pursuit. Jack is sprinting across the square, fading in the dusk. A pair of figures throw themselves out of his way, and Gabriel ghosts past them a second later. Jack’s pulse rifle is deadly at range, but he’s not fast enough, not anymore.

Gabriel turns a corner and a blast from the rifle smashes into his arm, spinning him half around; he smells something burned, fabric, yes, maybe flesh, he’s not sure, hasn’t given much attention to his sense of smell either. But it hardly hurts and he advances firing. Jack whips around the far corner and is gone. Gabriel goes after him, guns raised. Jack dashing away in the direction of the docks, and a flicker of movement from an alley to the side, the flash of someone hiding from the commotion.

Gabriel laughs. It’s an ugly noise, a kind of gurgling rasp, and he calls down the street, “Don’t turn your back on me, Jack!”

Not running anymore. He stalks toward the side alley as Jack whirls.

There’s someone there—a couple, a young man and woman fleeing away from him. A pulse from the rifle clips his back as he goes after them. A shout echoing off the brick walls. _“Gabe, stop!”_

He lifts his guns and fires. The couple are too far for the scattered shots and don’t even stumble as they duck down another street, but he doesn’t bother with them any further, only tosses his guns down and strides back toward the entrance of the alley so that when Jack appears—

—rifle raised but not firing yet because of possible collateral, and Gabriel finds himself laughing his death-rattle laugh again as he raises a closed fist and punches Jack in the jaw.

That mask might have helped him against anyone else, but Gabriel’s muscles flow and ripple, snaking up to fortify his arm and shoulder, and he feels the bones of his hands fracture when the blow lands. Jack’s head snaps to the side, and his arms go limp, the rifle clattering to the ground. But he catches himself in the collapse, fingers splaying on the asphalt.

Gabriel picks him up by the collar, raises his head, and punches him again. A crack opens up in his mask.

There’s an objective he should be pursuing. A reason he came to this city. But the theft can wait, because Jack is here at his mercy and that’s not an opportunity he’s about to pass up. Gabriel hurls him into the wall; he thumps into it with a grunt and slides down, folded in on himself. “Gabe.” Gasped out, muffled behind the mask. “Gabe, I’m—“

Gabriel kneels over him and grabs the mask, his claw-tipped fingers digging into the edges. The points of metal puncture the tough material, and cracks spider out and anastomose. Jack grasp his wrist, trying again to say something. “Gabe—please—“ But it’s too late; the seams at the edges separate from each other, and Gabriel tears the mask off, tossing it aside.

Jack.

A shallow, contracted scar grasps his jaw and cheeks, but somehow despite it that farmboy face is handsome as ever. He doesn’t meet Gabriel’s eyes; his lip is split from the punches, his teeth pink, blood trickling down his chin. “Gabe,” he gasps. “I’m sorry.”

Fuck. 

“Sorry for what?” Gabriel grabs Jack’s jaw, clawed fingertips digging into his cheeks. “Shooting at me? Missing?”

“Come on, Gabe.” The barest hint of a smile. “For what I did. What I was like back then. You were right and I wouldn’t admit it. I’m sorry.”

“About what, exactly?” Gabriel hisses, and slams Jack’s head back into the wall. “We fought about a lot of things, _cabrón.”_

Jack wheezes out a laugh, bloody saliva flying from his lips. “Most of it. All of it. They pushed like you said they would. I was afraid for us. For Overwatch. I didn’t fight them. Started turning my head so I wouldn’t have to see. They let us stay together, they let us do good. I thought that was enough.” He lets go of Gabriel’s wrist, and his hands drift slowly to his sides. “You know, when the accusations started coming, I wasn’t even surprised. Just sick. That all happened on my watch and I didn’t fight any of it. Just fought you. My best friend in the whole damn world. How backwards is that?”

Gabriel’s fingers twitch, and blood beads from Jack’s skin beneath his fingertips. Damn. Didn’t mean to do that. “Kind of late for that, Jack.”

“I know. I’ve been trying—to make it right.” He wipes his mouth on the back of his hand. “Fighting the people we should have stopped back then.”

Gabriel exhales, cool breath collecting inside his mask. He doesn’t want to hear this. “You going to try and convince me not to kill you?”

Jack shrugs one shoulder. “I guess not. Guess I deserve it for what I did. I just—damn it, Gabe.” His face tightens. “I just wish I hadn’t—done this to you. You deserved better. Deserve better.”

Fuck.What is this? Gabriel searches for a trick and doesn’t find one. Jack’s eyes (bright and baby-blue) flicker up and find his own—the holes in the mask, at least, which isn’t good enough, because he hasn’t _seen_ Jack in years.

Gabriel releases Jack and reaches up— _this is a bad idea,_ he remembers it just in time but keeps going anyway, pushing his hood back and lifting his mask out of the way. A breeze off the sea sweeps through the alley, blowing a few stray curls across his forehead.

Jack’s face folds immediately, and he raises a hand, his fingers brushing Gabriel’s cheek. “Gabe—Jesus, what happened to you?”

Yes. This was a bad idea.

The eye is the worst at the moment. The extra one sitting just above his left. A mistake during the last reconstruction that he didn’t bother to fix; he’s covered it as best he can, but it’s still slitted, red and gleaming. His skin has been wrong for a long time, mottled between his normal shade of brown, patches of the ashy hue that reminds him how many times he’s been dead, and the thick ribbons of creeping black that seem to keep on getting bigger every time he has to put himself back together again. Jack’s fingers touch just above the messy hole in his cheek that exposes teeth too sharp and heavy to pass as anything close to human—he simply let them erupt from his jaw.

“You got strong, Jack,” Gabriel murmurs. “I got this.”

Jack’s eyes search his face for a moment before the understanding dawns. “The healing ability.”

“Yeah.”

“But—you weren’t like this before.”

Gabriel snorts. “You haven’t seen me for a while.”

“Gabe.” Jack’s hand rests over the hole in Gabriel’s cheek. “Are you—okay?”

He doesn’t really feel Jack’s glove against him—nerves are complicated and touch doesn’t help him any day-to-day, so he’s let it fall by the wayside. But this seems important somehow, and his flesh prickles and sparks under his skin until the sensation of the synthetic fabric rises into his awareness.

_Are you okay?_

“So you’ve been righting your wrongs, huh?” he murmurs.

Jack drops his hand. “Guess you could say that. Got lot to make up for.”

Gabriel chuckles, a hollow clicking low in his throat. “And I’m the one you just can’t seem to fix, is that right? Your aim’s not as good as it used to be.”

“Come on, Gabe.” Jack grabs his hand where it’s balled in the white and blue jacket. “I know I messed things up, real bad. But you don’t have to keep paying for what I did. You’re a good man, Gabe. I _know_ you.”

Is he? Hardly even a man anymore (cool air on his black tongue as the breeze blows through his cheek). So why does Jack still think that, after Blackwatch, after Gabriel’s new profession?

Gabriel misses him suddenly, misses the way things were before it all went to shit. Not exactly what he wanted to feel when he’s got Jack Morrison laid out on the ground before him. But there it is. Gabriel realizes he’s not going to kill Jack, at least not now, which is deeply aggravating, not to mention humiliating. He releases Jack and stands, takes a few steps back. Jack starts to rise.

His lips are moving but Gabriel is already dissolving and in the transition the words are lost. His clothes crumple to the street. Bad idea, he shouldn’t be doing this again—too distracted to put himself back together properly. But he didn’t want to be there anymore.

Sight and sound come to him now in an infinitesimal patchwork, sensory information received by a thousand billion discrete particles, shared over short-distance electromagnetic waves and assembled cooperatively millions of times per second. Distant laughing, the low klaxon of a ship’s horn in the harbor. The dingy alley, the stack of pallets off to one side with the plastic wrap floating above it, an industrial ghost. The sea canal black and glittering off in the distance. Jack’s face retreating away below him, baby-blue eyes fading into the dusk. Not shouting anymore. He gapes, stunned.

 _You’re a good man, Gabe, I_ know _you._ Not anymore. Obviously. So then why did he say it?

Gabriel goes off to think. Maybe it’ll be easier as a cloud of smoke. More objective.

Or maybe it won’t make any goddamn difference.

——

The hotel is on the waterfront, an old wooden building with faded teal paint squashed up between two apartment complexes. The canal lights below it send a dim yellow glow into the night. The water ripples gently as Gabriel glides across, still little more than a wisp of shadow. _Second floor, middle room,_ the young girl told him. He thinks he must have frightened her—didn’t bother with much beyond a pair of lungs to move air, an enclosed cavity with which to pump them, a set of vocal cords, lips and tongue to form the words. On her screen he must have looked like a glitch. A broken camera. But she might have guessed.

The window is dark. Is he asleep already? The wood is warped and Gabriel slips through the crack above the windowsill, drifts into the silent room, winds around the low coffee table, and approaches the bedroom. Then stops. The door is wide open, the bed empty. But a duffel bag sits on the floor with a white-and-blue jacket tossed over it.

Where did he go at this time of night? Doesn’t matter. He’ll be coming back.

Now for the hard part.

Gabriel doesn’t know how long he has so he does it messy and fast—as fast as he can, anyway. It still takes some time, the minute fragments of his dispersed body differentiating themselves, building his form into something human-shaped. He is insubstantial and thickens like a thundercloud until his fingertips condense on the woven rug, his eyes smear open, his lungs beg air. He heaves in a breath and coughs.

Right. That’s done. He stands, naked—plucks the blanket off the back of the couch and throws it over his shoulders. Still no Jack. Struck with morbid curiosity, he wanders into the bathroom and takes a look in the mirror.

Eyes. Fucked those up again. Two extra now, one on each side, crowding with their partners in the deformed sockets. Red as they have been for some time (he sees better at night, he finds, and has no need of the light to examine his reflection here). The skin is worse too; for some reason it remembers the five o’clock shadow, remembers his mess of curly hair, but a long strip of mottled black rests across his forehead, shrouding his eyes. An ash-grey patch splits his mouth and covers his right cheek. At least the cheek is intact—they both are, although his teeth are grotesque as ever and his tongue black as night when he sticks it out to investigate.

He blinks, his four red eyes slitting closed and open again.

Could be worse, he thinks, though he can’t really imagine how. He exhales and shuffles out of the bathroom. Softness against the soles of his feet—he curls his toes into the rug. Nerves. His feet sting and spark, but the sensation resolves. Been a long time since he put any effort into that.

The blanket hangs over his shoulders, the tasseled hem brushing the backs of his knees. He sits down on the couch, which creaks under his weight. After a moment he turns sideways, folds his legs up, and leans up against the back of it.

He shouldn’t be here.

It was what Jack said. _You’re a good man._ That’s why he’s here, to tell Jack he’s wrong. To make him understand. Or at least to figure out why he said it in the first place when it’s patently, evidently wrong.

Gabriel had expected the blanket to be warm but it’s not, probably because he isn’t warm. Same temperature as the summer night air. So he fixes that too and his next breath is a little warmer, and the next a little warmer. Okay, not bad. Starting to resemble human, if it weren’t for the extra eyes, the patchwork skin. At least the structure is sound, the muscles and bones, although it’s so mutable now even without his impetus.

A key scrapes in the lock.

Gabriel sits perfectly still in the gloom. The door swings open and Jack steps through and starts hard and says _“Jesus,”_ at the same time the six-pack of beer bottles he’s carrying clinks loudly against the doorframe.

Dim orange light spills inside from the hall. Gabriel rolls off the couch and lets the blanket pool on the floor at his feet. He ambles over and leans down to pluck the six-pack from Jack’s hand.

“Jesus. _Gabe?”_

He holds the bottles up to the light to read the labels and curls his lip in anger. “You can never pick out any decent goddamn beer. What the hell’s wrong with you?”

Silence. Gabriel plucks a bottle from the plastic, digs one tooth into the cap and hooks another beneath it. The caps pops off and he spits it onto the table.

“Gabe. Uh—shit.” Jack closes the door hastily.

Gabriel takes a swig. Doesn’t taste like anything. Fuck. That’s another thing he’s been letting go. His tongue tingle for a second and then he’s flooded with the taste of shitty American beer. He swallows with a grimace. “Tastes like piss. Warm piss.”

“Uh. You’re naked.”

“Yeah.” He tips the bottle back again, picks up a second and holds it out.

Jack doesn’t take it. “Let me find you some clothes.”

He flicks on the overhead lamp and goes for the bedroom. Gabriel leans against the table and takes another long drink. Damn. First thing he tastes in months (years) and it’s vile.

“Here.” Jack returns holding a pile of clothes. Gabriel accepts it, shakes out the first item. A sweatshirt. He slips his arms into it.

Jack sighs. “Might be a little small, but I think they’ll fit.”

The second article is a pair of sweatpants. Gabriel steps into them and hikes them up.

Jack cracks a smile. “Although those might not fit over your ass.”

“Fuck off, Morrison,” Gabriel replies automatically and pauses—how many times did they have that same back-and-forth, in the locker room or out in the field? He tugs the pants up over his ass after a minor struggle and shoots Jack a glare. The hems barely brush his ankles. Jack snorts and picks up his beer, popping the cap off on the edge of the table.

He looks good. A white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, a pair of blue slacks. Trim, older but not aged. Even the scarring can’t diminish his easy all-American charm. Still got the split lip from getting punched earlier. Gabriel goes back to the couch and sits just as he was before, sipping at the cheap mass-produced swill. 

Jack stands with arms folded. “I’m assuming this isn’t an assassination attempt.”

Gabriel shrugs one shoulder. “Not yet.”

“So you’re here for another reason.”

“Kind of.” A long sigh, his breath warm now as it gusts past his lips. “You said I was a good man.”

“You are.”

“Jack, I take money to kill people.”

A second’s silence. “I know. But that’s not like you.”

Gabriel chuckles. “You stayed away from Blackwatch, Jack. What I’ve been doing since, sometimes I think it’s better.”

“Do you _want_ to do it?”

Gabriel’s eyes flick up. The room is dark except for the moonlight through the window, but he can see well enough with his modified eyes. Jack is slouched against the table, bottle dangling from his fingers. Gabriel tries to figure out how to answer. How to explain it all. It’s not something he’s ever put in words before. So where does he start?

Finally he opens his mouth, his heavy teeth sliding over each other, disengaging like the jaws of a trap. “You know, sometimes I can’t even control the shape of my own body.”

Jack is still for a moment; then he comes over and sits at the other end of the couch.

“It was starting to happen when I was still with Blackwatch. We weren’t talking much at the time.” He cracks a humorless smile. “I didn’t show you. When the base exploded I thought I was dead. I was a lot closer to the center of the blast than you were.” He tips the bottle back, swallows, rests it on his knee. “But I wasn’t dead. Just…scattered.”

“Nanomachines, is that right?” Jack murmurs.

Gabriel nods. “With AI. They learned from me getting shot and stabbed and poisoned and burned for all those years. Learned enough to put me back together. Mostly. But now…” He lifts a hand, stares at his blackened palm. “They adapt even when I don’t ask them too. Change me depending on what I need or want at the time.”

“Shit. I’m sorry, Gabe.”

Gabriel laughs, a rattle in his throat. “Not your fault you got the good shit and I got fucked up.”

“Did it— _change_ you?”

If only he could blame it all on this. “It enables me. That’s it. Everything I’ve done was my decision.” He raises an eyebrow, lids shifting over his twinned eyes. “What do you think, Jack? Would a _good man_ do what I’ve done?”

Jack heaves a sigh, throws an arm over the back of the couch. “Maybe. If he got tossed under the bus so many times he started to feel like it didn’t matter.”

Gabriel snorts. “Pretty sure giving up disqualifies me from being a good man.”

“No, because you’re still a _man,_ Gabe, I know now what you went through in Blackwatch and I can’t imagine how much it hurt you to see that.” On the back of the couch Jack’s fingers fiddle with the seam between the cushions. "To follow orders because you thought you were doing the right thing only to find out later you were lied to the entire damn time. That’ll break anyone, Gabe, come on. You’re only human.”

“No,” Gabriel murmurs.

 _I wish he’d see._ That’s what Gabriel thinks, and his body changes in accordance, numbness flushing over both his cheeks and a sudden feeling of openness as the flesh there scours away to display his disgusting teeth. His fingers grow heavy; he lifts a hand and finds them clubbed, the tips splitting so that claws can grow from them like drips of black wax piling at the base of a candle. There’s a pang of reflexive fear in the back of his mind that evaporates benignly a second later. Of course he can do this. Why couldn’t he?

Jack leans forward and sets his beer down on the coffee table. Then he reaches out and grasps Gabriel’s hand. “Huh.”

Gabriel starts but stays where he is. His own hand looks comically villainous next to Jack’s. “What?”

“Thought you’d be cold. You weren’t showing up on my heat filter.”

“I was cold.” His words are distorted through his eroded lips. “Didn’t want to be anymore.” Can’t feel Jack—nerves. Fuck.

Too eager this time. The sudden surge in feedback burns like a live wire, and he jerks away with a hiss. Jack flinches away. “Shit. Sorry, did I—“

“No, it wasn’t—“ Gabriel half-lunges forward and grabs Jack’s hand again.

For a few seconds neither says anything. It should be awkward—is awkward, for the first second, but they were close enough to have done this before even if they never did it and that rushes in to fill the gap all at once. The sudden feeling he got earlier of missing Jack, something he’d shunted off and ignored for years. It’s worse now. He’s been alone for a long time. Jack’s hand is rough and warm against his shifting skin.

Gabriel struggles for something to say. A false start, his new mouth poorly suited for talking; with a thought his flesh begins to grow again, spreading across his teeth like dirt thrown over a shallow grave. “You seem pretty calm about all this.”

A gentle smile (distorted by the scarring but still _so goddamn familiar)._ “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“I have four eyes. I have teeth like an animal. I just grew claws.”

“Yeah, well. I guess I’m just…” The smile disappears, submerged under something else. “…glad to see you again.”

Gabriel grins, new lips peeling back. “We were trying to kill each other a couple of hours ago.”

Jack snorts. “No we weren’t.”

Fuck. Gabriel doesn’t know how he missed it but it slaps him right in the face now. He remembers telling Jack his aim had gone to shit. It didn’t. Of course it didn’t. And he himself had Jack crumpled beneath him and—did what? Ran away rather than kill the man who once meant more to him than his own life.

“Do you still have a heartbeat?” Jack asks suddenly.

Gabriel shakes himself. “What?”

“You know, since you’re made out of tiny robots. Do you still have a heartbeat?”

Huh. “I’m not sure,” Gabriel muses.

“Well, let’s see.” Jack’s knee nudges Gabriel’s foot; it slips off the couch and onto the floor. Then Jack lets go of Gabriel’s hand and leans forward, sliding his fingers beneath the unzipped sweatshirt and pressing his palm flat against Gabriel’s chest.

 _Nerves._ No burn this time, just a feeling like static and then it’s Jack’s skin on his own. A strange false flashback—he used to daydream about this when the two of them were on stakeout or camping somewhere before a mission. It never happened, nothing did, because the world was watching and it would have been unprofessional at best. That was fine; he liked being around Jack and that was enough.

Not quite right. Something did happen. Jack’s thirty-fifth birthday party, a small but energetic affair at his house that ended up going late so Gabriel stayed afterward to help clean up. And they turned on one of the late night shows as background noise and both ended up on the couch watching it after the food was put away and the dishes were washed and the rug was vacuumed and the counters were cleaned.

Gabriel fell asleep first. He was a little drunk so he didn’t wake up until six the next morning and found himself still on the couch draped over Jack, arm wrapped around his middle, head resting on his chest. He stopped the flinch just in time—couldn’t risk disturbing this, because he knew this was it, it would never happen again. As he squinted at the clock he realized Jack must have woken once already because _he_ only drank a couple of beers the whole night and he wakes up at five every morning with or without the alarm. So he must have woken already and then decided not to move and gone back to sleep. Must have decided to fall asleep here in the first place, with Gabriel on top of him.

Gabriel lay there, listening to Jack’s steady heartbeat under his ear, and thought about it very hard. And then he shut his eyes again and stayed just where he was.

Another couple of hours passed by before he was shaken gently awake by Jack. _“Gabe. Hey. Let me up.”_

Gabriel, his head starting to thud from the hangover, groaned and was slow to rise; Jack chuckled quietly and smacked him on the shoulder. _“Let me up, I gotta take a piss.”_

So he pushed himself upright and squinted at the light through the curtains and Jack leaned over and kissed him on the temple and then got up off the couch, and it was over just like that. Neither of them mentioned it over breakfast, nor anytime after.

Jack’s palm is still pressed flat against Gabriel’s mottled chest. “See?” He nods. “Still got a heart.”

Gabriel gazes at him, the image tinted faintly red. He doesn’t think he wants to fall asleep on top of Jack again. Not when professionalism is a concern long past dead. Not when he’s just given himself a new sense of touch.

“Jack,” he says.

Jack’s eyes are fastened on Gabriel’s chest where his patchwork skin must show beneath the open sweatshirt; but his gaze flicks up. “Yeah?”

“Come here.”

He hesitates until Gabriel’s hand covers his own and squeezes. Then he grabs Gabriel’s beer bottle and sets it down on the coffee table and leans forward and Gabriel grabs the front of his shirt and pulls him closer and kisses him.

Immediately he’s pissed at himself for not doing this years ago, because as soon as their lips meet it’s like the piece of him that’s been out of step for years and years clicks smoothly into place. He could have had this long ago if only he’d said the goddamn words. If only he hadn’t been afraid, of what everyone else would say, yeah, but mostly of fucking it up. Losing Jack permanently. Better to play it safe.

But he’s already fucked it up pretty good by this point so there’s no need to play it safe anymore. He kisses Jack harder, his mouth opening, hears a quiet intake of breath and tastes blood. Shit. Leans back, finds Jack running a thumb over his lip. The split is intact; there’s a new bead of blood welling on the other side.

“Shit. Teeth.” Gabriel covers his mouth. “Sorry.”

“I don’t care,” Jack says, and kisses him again.

 _Nerves._ Already there. Jack’s lips are soft, his tongue scraping heedlessly past the gnarled animal teeth. Gabriel runs fingers through his hair, feels it— _feels_ it furrow softly through his claws.

 _Closer,_ he thinks. _More._

An odd stretching ache in his tongue and it’s slithering into Jack’s mouth—keeps on going, hideously long now, pours down Jack’s throat. Jack coughs, makes a guttural noise, jerks back; but then he closes the gap and their lips crash together again. _Nerves._ Gabriel feels the way Jack’s throat tightens as the repulsive tongue tickles his gag reflex. Needs to feel more. Only this couch is _too goddamn small—_

He breaks away, snarls out, _“Fuck.”_

“Do you want to go to—“ Jack pants, “—the bedroom?”

They make it there with two or three pauses to grab each other and kiss again, and Gabriel opens up another tiny cut on Jack’s lip—an accident, and he sucks the blood away. By the time they’re through the doorway his sweatshirt is lost and Jack’s shirt is half-open. He yanks his pants down (easier to get them over his ass when he’s motivated) and when he looks up Jack’s shrugging his shirt off his shoulders and throwing it on top of the duffel.

He’s always had a little bit of softness, more so now that he’s older—lines of muscle dulled, a gentle bunching above his waistband. Fine curls of white hair cover his chest and stomach. “Just so we’re clear.” Gabriel grabs him by the belt buckle and tugs him closer. “You’re going to fuck me.”

Jack lifts an eyebrow in mild bemusement. “Uh—if you’re sure.”

“Come on, you’ve been staring at my ass for years.” He cracks a grin. “Figured you should get a go at it.”

Jack grins in return. “Wouldn’t have stared at it so much if you didn’t show it off to me on purpose.”

Guilty as charged. Incongruous here, in the dim bedroom, the wash of memories of the old days—they laughed a lot, Gabriel remembers that, and can’t think now of the last time he laughed out of mirth instead of cynicism.

A distant pang of pain. Fuck. That wasn’t supposed to happen. Needs to distract himself. He goes for Jack’s belt buckle, flicks it open, slips his unclawed hand inside.

When Gabriel grasps him Jack gasps, leans in to kiss Gabriel’s neck and shoulder (didn’t he used to be shorter—or maybe Gabriel used to be taller and has lost that over time). Their bodies press together and he releases Jack’s dick, grabs him by the waist instead so they can grind on each other like it should have been, like it _fucking_ should have been years before.

Because what can they make of it now? Their legacy in ruins, their paths split by a yawning gulf that can’t ever be crossed. Jack is still trying, even in his disgrace.

And Gabriel kills people for money.

He sits on the bed, drags Jack on top of him. Their lips catch on each other—he’s more careful of his teeth now, because his monstrous tongue can explore Jack’s mouth and won’t hurt him any more. His hips buck up and Jack lets out a quiet moan into his mouth as they slide over each other. “Gabe. Shit.”

Gabriel blinks up at him with four red eyes. “Hm?”

A smile. “You know how many times I daydreamed about this when we were still with Overwatch?”

Gabriel snorts. “I don’t know if you’d call what I did ‘daydreaming.’ “

“Okay, yeah.” Jack kisses his neck. “You know, I missed you so goddamn much. After we started fighting and every day since. I should’ve just told you.”

 _And I shouldn’t have kept fighting. I should’ve talked to you._ Gabriel’s claw-tips run lightly down Jack’s back. He knows why he didn’t. Too angry over missing out on the promotion. Too proud, knowing he was right about the “oversight” they were locked into. “Jack,” he murmurs.

“Yeah?”

“I want you in me.”

Jack’s breath catches, hastens a little. “I—shit. We need lube.”

“Jack.”

“What?”

“We don’t need it.”

“Gabe—“

He grabs Jack’s hand, guides it down between his own legs to his hole, insistent. Jack obeys and slips the tip of one finger inside him.

Effortless. Gabriel had known instinctively that his body was changing, even if he had not been able to tell what exactly had happened. But he is supple and slippery—not wet; it feels more like the graphite spray he’d dig out whenever the Jeep started complaining out in the field. There’s no friction, no catching. Jack takes a quiet breath. “Shit.”

“Jack. I want you in me.”

It doesn’t take any more than that. Gabriel hikes his legs back to expose himself, and Jack leans down to kiss him again, dick rubbing against his hole. “In me,” Gabriel breathes into Jack’s mouth. “Jack—“

“I got you, Gabe.”

The tip of Jack’s dick against him, faint pressure—and he gives just like that, spreading open easily. Not even a hint of a stretch. Their hips meet, Jack hilted fully inside him.

This body of his.

“Oh, fuck, Gabe.” Jack’s mouth at his throat, his collarbone. “You feel amazing.”

He tips his head back and grins. Feels _full,_ yes, but not as full as he could be—and he tightens, his muscles thickening, and Jack swears and ruts into him. There. Full and straining, but it doesn’t hurt because he controls that, he controls everything about this.

Nerves.

A bloom of warmth between his legs. He lets out a quiet moan, crosses his ankles around Jack’s back. “Come on. Come on.”

Jack sucks hungrily at the thin skin at his neck, fucking into him with short, steady thrusts. _Nerves._ Each thrust stroking something inside him. How long has it been? How long since he’s felt pleasure? Not since he dissolved that night after the base explosion. It wasn’t important anymore.

Because it should have been this. It should always have been this. Only Jack. Who grasps him now, squeezing, rubbing his thumb under Gabriel’s crown. _Nerves._ He feels it. It should always have been this. Jack holding him, taking him. He thought it could never be, after the explosion ripped his body apart and (he thought) Jack’s too. Even when he realized who his masked hunter was, it didn’t change anything. Everything was fucked between them. They’d killed each other.

The next thrust makes his hips jerk and his thighs tighten. The burst of pleasure knocks the breath from his lungs. Bloodied lips seeking out his own, tongue tracing the points of his teeth as if testing their sharpness. Gabriel could bite him, make him bleed. His own tongue glides out, coils around Jack’s, pulls him in.

Everything is fucked between them.

 _More._ His claws dig into Jack’s back. _Deeper._ “Jack,” he rasps.

“Yeah.” Jack plunges into him, over and over and over. “Gabe. Fuck.”

Gabriel shuts his eyes, feels how pliant, how open he is. _More. Deeper._

Something changes. In his body, somehow. Can’t tell anymore. And Jack is fucking him deeper, even though he was already hilted before. The pleasure diffuses from his groin like ink in water. A strange feeling in his sides. Shadows in his vision—two phantom arms, hazy and black, barely discernible in the dark bedroom. Curling around Jack’s back to pull him closer.

Kisses trailing down his chest, Jack’s tongue circling his nipple. Gabriel arches into it gently. He’s starting not to feel real anymore. Can feel Jack fucking him, the tongue at his nipple. But the rest of his body escapes him. He does feel the phantom arms, a million points of contact on Jack’s sweaty skin. So discrete he imagines for a moment he can sense the smallest details of Jack’s muscles, each individual fascicle contracting, shifting, releasing under his touch.

“Jack,” he murmurs.

Jack lifts his head, plants a lingering kiss on Gabriel’s lips. “Yeah?”

“I think I’m….“ It makes sense in his head. But he doesn’t have the right words for it. “I think it wants to consume you.”

Jack gazes down at him for a moment, hilts inside him and stills; then he pushes a curl of hair from Gabriel’s forehead and says “I don’t mind.”

When he starts fucking Gabriel again his thrusts are short and deep, and Gabriel lets out a stuttered noise, grasping at the sheets (his ghost-arms still wrapped around Jack’s back). The pleasure is urgent now. It demands completion.

Jack sits up, his hands running up Gabriel’s stomach, grasping his chest. His eyes flutter, lips parted. “Fuck, Gabe. I’m close.”

“Yeah.” Gabriel nods. “Yeah. Come in me.”

Jack shifts his weight forward, bracing himself on Gabriel’s chest and pinning him to the bed, and fucks into him with something Gabriel might call violence if he didn’t know Jack so well. There’s no sound in the bedroom of Jack’s hips slapping into his ass, but he feels it deep within him, feels how he’s going to come from this, how Jack’s going to make him come. Gabriel presses Jack’s hands into his chest, legs locked together around his back. “Inside me, come inside me, Jack—“

One last thrust and Jack lets out a low, harsh moan, grinding into Gabriel with short, forceful rolls of his hips.

Gabriel’s own orgasm doesn’t hit him all at once like it used to. In his new body it ripples out from where Jack is hilted in him, his unstable flesh failing to transmit the sensory information along the organic paths that have dissolved during the coupling; instead the climax spreads from particle to particle until all of a sudden it saturates his entire body. For a moment he thinks he loses his shape, the shockwave shaking him apart; then he resolves, still trying to cry out, but no sound escapes him. Strong hands knead the muscles in his chest even as he fucks himself mindlessly on Jack’s still-hard dick.

When the high leaves him he separates his legs and lets Jack pull out (feels the soft _pop)._ He squints in the red-filtered darkness. The phantom arms are gone.

He turns on his side and Jack lies behind him, wraps an arm around his chest. His skin is hot, damp with sweat against his back. Gabriel has wanted this, to fall asleep with Jack naked and curled up beside him. Wanted it for years. Before.

And now?

He takes Jack’s arm and pulls it tighter around him. Closes his eyes.

——

When he wakes the next morning the clock says five forty-four a.m.

 _Jack must have woken already,_ he thinks. There’s still a warm body behind him. When he shifts, the arm around his chest squeezes him a little.

It’s time to get out of bed.

He rises smoothly, sliding away from Jack and heading out into the living room. Their beers are still on the coffee table. He picks up the nearest one and finishes it off, picks up the second and takes a swig.

Jack appears in his boxers. He’s attractive, disheveled like this. His smile is tired but warm and amused. “Beer for breakfast? Seems healthy.”

Gabriel doesn’t manage a smile. “Not the first time.”

The sun has risen, barely, and pink light struggles through the window. Gabriel tips his head back, chugs the rest of the beer.

“Gabe.”

He wipes his mouth and sets the bottle down. “No.”

“Please. You don’t have to go.“

“You can’t stop me, Jack.“ Now he grins, humorless. “Literally.”

“Damnit, Gabe.“ Real pain on his face, of the kind Gabriel saw after things went bad and they’d fight, really fight. He hated seeing that goddamn look. “You don’t have to keep doing this. We can start over.”

“Maybe you could.” Gabriel shrugs. “But we’re not the same.”

Jack’s fist curls and uncurls. He’s trying not to punch the wall. “Gabe. _I know you.”_

“Times have changed, Jack.” He shrugs. “You can aim for the heart next time.” His skin dissipating, rising away from him as he heads for the window. “It’s not going to kill me anyway.”

Jack says something in reply but again the words are lost as Gabriel loses form and slips out the crack above the windowsill. Just as well. He didn’t want to hear it.


End file.
